“Open in the name of the king!”

Little John pushed to his knees. He’d lain on a pallet on the dirt floor because he was too big for the bed and too heavy for the table. The crofters’ hut was dark without windows, only a smoky fire.

A poultice of grass, cow manure, eggs, fennel, and rose petals covered two holes in his back, one in the ribs, one in the kidneys. The crossbow bolts plucked from his back lay on the hearth. Now the green poultice slid off as he rose.

“Open up in there!”

“No, child, you mustn’t move.” A wise woman tried to push John flat. Bold Jane Downey fretted. The crofters who’d given them shelter looked terrified. Only Little John remained calm.

The men who beat the door had wounded him.

“Let us in. We’re King Richard’s soldiers. This outlaw is wanted.” Then, “Break it down.”

A thump rattled the bar.

“Oh, my...” The giant climbed to his feet, so tall he stooped even in a cruck hut. His face was tanned, his hair tawny and braided thick as a horse tail. A spade beard brushed his hairy chest. His shirt had been sliced off. He wore only brown hose laced to a cloth belt and boots of deerhide. Despite his wounds, he looked solid as a hundred-year oak.

“I was afeared of this.” His companion was thin as a boy and so small her scabbard was strapped across her back. She wore Lincoln green, tunic and hose, and her Saxon blonde hair was cut short under an archer’s cap with the long tail wrapped around her neck. Robin Hood had named her Bold Jane Downey because, at the start, she’d been timid as a fawn. “Oh, what would Robin do?”

The door slammed in its frame, then bent.

Little John stroked his beard in imitation of Robin Hood. “What’d you do with the horses?”

“Sent them away lest they be seen.”

“Shank’s mare, then.”

“You can’t run.” Bold Jane waggled a slim sword uselessly. Not three hours ago, the giant had rescued Jane and caught two bolts in the back for it. In the thundering escape, Robin Hood had pointed them south to seek succor. Jane had volunteered to tend the giant, but now wanted to cry. “Do you hope to break past them? They’ve swords.”

“Aye – oh!” Little John’s jaw was clenched in pain. He flexed hands like bear paws as he scanned the cottage. Tree-trunk crucks were buried deep in the ground and joined at the top like wishbones. Smoke-stained wattle and daub formed the walls. A stone fireplace enclosed one end, the only door the other.

The door splintered in its frame.

The giant stepped to the door and knocked. “Stop tha’. I’m coming out.”

Whirling, he strode to the stone fireplace. Catching up a table plank, the giant scratched a furrow in the dirt floor.

“You lot.” Little John pointed his chin at the crofters and crabbed witch. “Hie to the holt and hide till dark. Jane, make haste to Sherwood and tell Rob.”

“But –” Jane’s bosom fluttered. This man had saved her life, sacrificed for her. “I – I can’t leave you alone. They’ll hurt you.”

“Naw. They want me alive. Ready to run?”

Bold Jane just sniffled. Trapped in the cottage, with only the one door and no windows, the peasants and wise woman looked bewildered.

“No. I won’t go.” Tears betrayed her. “Robin charged I guard you, and I shall.”

“Rob’d be first to say go.” The giant was gentle. “‘An outlaw’s weapons are his legs and lungs,’ he likes to say. So sheathe your sword. Good. Tell Rob not to worry.”

Little John braced both hands on the fireplace. The chimney was stone chinked with mud. He scuffed his feet, dug his toes in the furrow in the floor. Muscle knotted in his long arms. Blood pulsed from twin holes in his back. He sucked air, grunted, and heaved.

With a roar the chimney tore loose of the cottage wall. Stones ground and clattered, mud crushed to dust, soot spurted. Through a dirty cloud, sunshine poured into the dank cottage.

At the front a soldier shouted.

Yeoman and wife clambered over the ruined chimney and scampered for the woods. The wise woman hiked her skirts to pick her way, and Little John took her hand. He turned for Bold Jane Downey, who stayed rooted to the cottage floor.

“John, I –”

“What’s Scarlett always say? Women pick the worst times to argue?”

“John – What are you doing?”

Little John caught Jane by an arm and thigh, like a plucked chicken.

“Hold hard, villain!”

Soldiers blocked the sunshine in the sundered wall. They wore leather surcoats, soupbowl helmets, and gypons of red painted with Richard’s three gold lions. Half a dozen had swords and crossbows.

“Just in time.”

The giant threw Bold Jane Downey.

Bleating, she crashed amid soldiers, bowling over four, but came out on top and scrambled up. A soldier snagged Jane’s arm. “Hang on! We’ll take you, too – Gah!”

A hurled pot clanged off his steel helmet. Another soldier grabbed Jane and caught a chunk of cordwood in the chin.

Heels flying, Bold Jane Downey pelted for the forest.

The two standing guards leveled crossbows after her.

“Ho, boys, watch your backs!”

Little John charged from the cottage with three parts of a table. Stomping squirming bodies, he swung the table and spanked a crossbowman flat. The sole man standing hopped away and aimed for the onrushing behemoth.

“Naw. Ah’ve had enow of that.” Reaching, the giant snagged the man’s elbow as he pulled the trigger. The bolt sizzled into the sky. The soldier’s arm wrenched from its socket. He went white and collapsed.

Huffing, Little John dropped the table almost on his foot. “Bugger. I’m forbled – as a ferret. Uhh!”

Behind, a soldier punched the giant’s spurting wound with a gloved fist. Little John staggered. The soldier walloped the other wound and the giant flopped to his knees. More soldiers piled on, furious after a fright, and hammered with fists and crossbows. Little John sank.

Biting turf, the giant clawed for purchase, floundering to rise and fight. But black clouds broke on his head and washed him away.

The last he heard was a snarl.

“Robin Hood’s man – Little John – by the living God – you’re under arrest.”

“Here’s a toast.” Robin raised a mug. “To Little John!”

“To John!”

“Where’er he be,” added Scarlett.

“No matter. We’ll find him. As God is my witness.”

The Merry Men and Women and Children held an impromptu feast on a hillside nodding with violet crane’s-heads. The view overlooked the River Trent at Newark. They ate trout threaded over a fire, barley cakes baked on slanted rocks, and “whitemeat” cow’s cheese. Babies drank milk and everyone else beer. Clara doled out chunks of spicy gingerbread.

Still weary from the Battle of the Greenwood, the foresters had been stunned when Bold Jane Downey ran sobbing into camp, telling of Little John’s capture. Without delay, and with nothing to hold them, Robin and Marian had turned the band out on the road and aimed south.

“Can you believe we walked twelve miles?” asked Tub.

“I can’t believe we walked only twelve miles,” said Will Stutly. “Call yourselves foresters?”

“Consider our numbers,” said Marian. “We’re a village all by ourselves. I grow dizzy counting noses.”

Robin had to agree. In Sherwood Forest, among tall trees, the band looked tiny. Here, in one place under the sun, they seemed a burgeoning army.

There was Arthur A’Bland and his wife Mary, and their dull girls Rachel and Little Mary. Red Tom the carpenter and daughter Polly. Will Scarlett and Tam, Robin’s cousins, and his godmother Old Bess. Old Will Stutly. Bold Jane Downey and Grace, Robin’s “yeomen”, and too Katie at fourteen. Ben Barrel and Clara with fat Tub, knee-high Glenyth, and the babe Bridget Ann. Black Bart. Much the Miller’s Son. David of Doncaster, widowed and gloomy. Gilbert of the White Hand and tiny Cedwyn, their Welsh witch. The Fair Elaine, widow of Allan A’Dale, with Young Allan, Little Elaine, and toddler Dale. Marian. Only Friar Tuck was absent, having crawled to a bishop to confess his sins. And missing at Robin’s right hand, Little John, the Gentle Giant, the Brown Bear of Sherwood.

“Strength in numbers.” Robin burped ale. “Your pardon.”

“But where are we bound?” asked Will Scarlett, Robin’s perpetual bugbear.

“A good question deserving a good answer. We go south. To London. Or Portsmouth. King Richard gathers arms for France, so must depart one port or the other. It’s never hard to find a king, and Little John’s must be nearby.”

“We hope,” said Clara.

“If not,” returned Marian, “someone will tell us. Count on gossip sure as the North Wind. We’ll camp in London and scour the countryside for John.”

“What’s London like?”

“Same as Lincoln or York,” said Robin. “A big town full of too many people. Toss me a trout, will you, Marian?”

“What do people there?”

Clara slapped. “Don’t wipe your nose on the blanket, Glenyth. Use your sleeve.”

“And spit to leeward, will you, Bart?”

“More beer, you.” Red Tom lobbed his mug to Polly. His daughter dipped in a cask.

“How shall we get Little John back, exactly?” asked Cedwyn.

“Same as always. A madcap plot, foolhardy bravery, and God’s own luck,” said Scarlett. “We’re the bleeding Merry Men of Sherwood Forest. Living legends.”

“Will’s not half wrong.” Robin wiped his mouth with a wrist. “Like we plucked Will Stutly off the gallows. Like we got Allan A’Dale and Elaine married, nine days’ work done in a day. Like we stole the Sheriff’s silver arrow from under his nose and shot it back through his window. Look at this force. I could capture France and proclaim myself king.”

“What Robin Hood wants, Robin Hood gets,” said his cousin Tam.

“Though it may’ve been a mistake pulling Will Scarlett from that dungeon.”

“T’was time,” said Arthur. “We’d et all the rats.”

“Aye, and me repeatin’ myself singin’. The guards complained.”

“Some as us still do,” said Red Tom.

“Speaking o’ which, how about a song?” Robin pointed his nose. “Elaine?”

“If Allan were here...” sighed the widow.

“How about more beer?” asked Ben Barrel.

“Yeah. A man’d die of thirst.”

Polly tipped the cask for last dregs. Men groaned.

“Robin, can we see some sights?” Grace was a tall and awkward woman, so christened as a jest. “There are shrines in London, aren’t there?”

“And sweets to buy,” said Tub.

“Sweet food and tart women.”

“Will...”

“Tub, give that back.” Katie grabbed for a cooked trout on a stick.

“How many people live there, anyway?”

“Lots,” said Robin. “It’s the biggest city in England.”

“No, that’d be York,” said Ben Barrel.

“Is it? Well, they’re hamlets compared to Paris or Constantinople. Those cities run for miles. You couldn’t walk gate to gate in a long day.”

“No,” said Mary. “That can’t be.”

“Do the king’s men hunt us?” asked Bold Jane.

“Makes no difference,” said Will Stutly.

Clara, chief cook, was always practical. “They tracked down Little John.”

“That was my fault,” murmured Jane.

“No,” said Marian. “It couldn’t be helped.”

“Besides,” said Scarlett, “who’d notice thirty-odd yeomen in green bearing swords and bows just walking down the road?”

“Strange we met no brigands, coming all this way,” said Elaine.

“Just remember the rules.” Robin couldn’t say it enough, and most times no one listened anyway. “Don’t draw steel ‘less I do. Don’t tell anyone who we are or where we’re from or why we’re here. Just act vague and stupid –”

“Hear that, Much?” called Ben Barrel. “Act stupid.”

“Better honest than handsome,” said Clara.

“We’ve gold and steel enow.” Robin plowed on. “It’s fast and simple, like all good plans. Get to London, ask around, grease palms, find where John’s hid, whisk him out and hey, nonny, non, home.”

“After the sights,” added Marian.

“Them too. We’ll be home before corn’s up. So here’s to success and a short –”

“Quit it, Tub!” Girls and boys piled up kicking and squirming. Adults slid sideways.

“– a short stay.”

“Rob, what if Little John’s been – executed?” asked Red Tom.

“What’s that?”

“Nothin’.”

“Dead, is what he asked,” said Scarlett.

“Little John is dead?” asked Mary.

“What about it, Rob?” Arthur A’Bland, Little John’s hardheaded cousin, didn’t like surprises. “What if John’s been killed?”

“If John’s dead...” Robin swung a mug around one finger. “Richard Lionheart will rue the day Robin Hood and His Merry Men came to London town. Because I’ll burn his city down around his ears...”